In what ways does Turkey applying to the EU illustrate the ever greater difficulties confronted by the EU as it makes an ever greater impact?

As the European Union becomes a more important factor in the world, more countries would like to be a part of it. For example, Turkey has been trying to join the EU for years now. Ukraine has also been negotiating with the EU to have closer ties. This means that the EU is dealing with countries that are outside its own core geographical and cultural area. As this happens, the EU can encounter more and more difficulties.

The issue of Turkey’s membership in the EU is one example of how this happens. Turkey is different from EU countries in a number of ways. For one thing, it would be the only country in the EU that would have a Muslim majority. It also comes from a political and social tradition that has different ideas about human rights and liberalism than the EU core countries do. This causes problems. The EU has to figure out what to do, for example, about the fact that Turkey has real issues with the way it treats its Kurdish minority.

As the EU’s importance expands, it will be trying to integrate more countries whose values and attitudes are not the same as those of the core EU countries. This is a major difficulty, one which can be seen in the issues that surround Turkey’s potential membership in the EU.